The whole Appeal hearing:
Selected quotes from the link:
From 1.16.19:
NICHOLAS JOHNSON KC: Another part of the context was that in the retrial Lucy Letby could have called medical evidence in the retrial, to establish that she was not guilty of the 14 offences of which she had been convicted. By the time the retrial started, nine months had passed since the convictions, and yet she chose not to call that evidence. She could have called it, she chose not to. And so it follows that the learned judge, we submit, was ruling on an application to stay knowing that this applicant wasn’t even raising an evidential issue backed up with evidence, concerning her convictions.
LORD JUSTICE WILLIAM DAVIS: Well, I assume he knew that when she was to give evidence she was to say ‘I did not commit any of these crimes’.
NICHOLAS JOHNSON KC: Absolutely My Lord.
LORD JUSTICE WILLIAM DAVIS: But your point is, that’s the only evidence she relied on to discharge the burden that was on her to demonstrate she was not guilty.
NICHOLAS JOHNSON KC: Precisely My Lord, and in this context, given that
the burden passes on the balance of probabilities to a defendant to disprove the convictions, any sensible dispute about the convictions necessarily, we would submit, would have had to have involved calling medical evidence.